And I got to thinking that while you’re at it and tweaking your privacy settings, you should also adjust your settings to control how Facebook uses your name and image throughout their site.

Better safe than sorry, right?

To change your settings, you need to do the following:

Log in to Facebook
Click on SETTINGS
Use the pull down menu and click on PRIVACY SETTINGS

Click on NEWS FEED AND WALL

Click FACEBOOK ADS

Use the pull down menu to select how you would like name or images to show up in third party applications – I leave this on set to ONLY MY FRIENDS (as in, Katy also likes the Good Wife, or Katy will be attending the free Starbucks event, etc).

Use the pull down menu to select how your “social actions” can be used in Facebook Ads – I have this one set to NO ONE

Click on SAVE CHANGES on the bottom

And you’re done.  Again, super easy.

Now you can rest easily knowing that your name and images will or won’t be used throughout Facebook the way YOU decide.

]]> http://www.katytafoya.com/2009/11/change-your-settings-to-control-how-facebook-can-use-your-photos-and-name/feed/ 0 http://www.katytafoya.com/2009/11/change-your-settings-to-control-how-facebook-can-use-your-photos-and-name/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KatyTafoya/~3/Abeu-LcfOrI/ http://www.katytafoya.com/2009/11/take-a-moment-and-change-your-facebook-settings/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:36:42 +0000 Katy http://www.katytafoya.com/?p=754 Have you noticed that your Facebook feed has been looking a little different lately?  Some might even say it looks cluttered and bogged down with things you don’t need (or care) to know about your friends.

Did you know that there was a recent change in Facebook that changed your Facebook recent activities settings?

Your profile is still private, but every time you do something, it will show up in the News Feed for all your friends to read.  Every time you join a group, become a fan, add a friend, or leave a comment on someone’s profile, it includes it in your feed.  This lets all your friends know what you did.

And well, I don’t know about you, but I just don’t think it’s something that we all need to know about each other.  Sadly, we can turn off all those notifications on our end.  But…you can turn off your recent activities settings so at least you won’t be bogging down your friends’ feeds.  And just think, if you spread the word, eventually, everyone will finally get around to adjusting their settings.

To change your settings, you need to do the following:

1.     Log in to Facebook

2.     Click on SETTINGS

3.     Use the pull down menu and click on PRIVACY SETTINGS

4.     Click on NEWS FEED AND WALL

5.     Mark each box that you would like to show up in the News Feed – I leave all mine unchecked

6.     Click on SAVE CHANGES on the bottom

It’s that simple!

And while you’re in your settings, if you haven’t yet adjusted your privacy setting for just how public your profile and photos can be, be sure to do that now as well.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

The Universe is Your Dog
by Christine Kane

“Start by becoming a pack leader in your own world and healing
your own world, and the effects will ripple.”
- Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer

One of the fun assignments in my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program is what I call “Mental Dress Up.”

This is a game that you can play daily. It is designed to bring intentions to life by literally embodying them in your own being.

Here’s how it works:

Take a few moments throughout your day and Be [Fill in the Blank with Desired Thing].

As you’re driving you can become a published writer. What would that feel like? When you’re at a party, try being someone that everyone wants to talk to. Be wise. Be someone who has so many clients, you can hardly get through a day without turning people down. Be someone who is certain of what she wants. What does that feel like?

Don’t get all scrunchy-faced and try to VISUALIZE – which is a very high-pressure word.

Instead feel the effortless shift in you, and BE successful. BE a fun person. BE wealthy. BE a rock star. Whatever!

My client Isabella started using this technique when she decided to “be someone who loves to run with her dog in the morning.” She was amazed at the results.

Typically after a few blocks of running, she’d start wheezing and feel awful. But when she became “someone who loved running with her dog,” she had more stamina and felt great during the run. She got better and better at this game until she actually began to love running with her dog!

One morning, she was returning from a run. Another dog and his owner were walking in her direction. Isabella’s dog, Bruno, is still healing from an abusive past and can be aggressive with other dogs. So, Isabella started to get anxious, clinging to Bruno’s leash.

Then, she remembered Mental Dress Up.

Instead of getting nervous and reacting to her dog’s bad behavior, she focused on how calm she felt and how much she loved her dog. She also played Mental Dress Up on Bruno, feeling that he was always very loving and peaceful around other dogs.

It worked! Bruno was fine. He followed her energy, and they both headed home without incident. To Isabella, this was a nice little miracle.

At this same time, Isabella was beginning a new business. She had experienced a whole range of emotions from enthusiasm to fear to excitement to disappointment during the process. At one point, she met with her accountant. The accountant was skeptical, issuing warnings to Isabella about the numbers and telling her the reasons why the business wouldn’t work.

During our coaching call, she shared these stories – about the triumph with her dog, and about the discouragement from her accountant. She wanted to know how to deal with her emotions after this deflating meeting.

Here’s what I told her:

I said, “Your accountant is your dog.”

Huh?

It’s true!

People follow your energy. It doesn’t matter if they are mentors, accountants, lawyers, audience members, listeners, friends, or customers. People follow your energy, just like dogs. You always have a choice to step up and lead them. Just like Cesar Millan has been telling dog owners for years. And just like Bruno showed Isabella in that one situation.

I told her that the success of her business would always be up to her. I told her that every business owner, artist or entrepreneur experiences bad news, good news, depression, loss, gain and insecurity. The decision to quit, fail, or succeed is always hers.

In that moment, her accountant might have sensed her fear and found all the negative stuff he could muster up to dissuade her. He became her dog and followed her energy.

You don’t have to be a Jedi master to tap into someone’s emotional state of being. You just have to be human. Had Isabella been feeling confident, most likely the accountant would have presented his views in a different light.

Ultimately, during our coaching call, I told Isabella this:

“The Universe is your dog.”

Everything and everyone follows the energy and emotional state you bring to it. Decide that you can do something, and the Universe follows that decision. Choose to radiate love and wisdom, and the Universe follows that radiance. This is not always an easy place to go. But it almost always teaches us about our own power to create or transform any situation.

It’s not about having to do something. It’s about playing the game.  Oh and did I mention that if you finish you could win a prize?  Cool huh?

But as I was saying…it’s not about the obligation to do something, or putting yet another thing on your to-do list.  It’s more about getting those creative juices flowing.  The more you write, the better writer you become.

In fact, you don’t even have to worry about quality content.  In this case, it’s purely about having a post go live every day.  In the past two years I’ve done this, I’ve posted photos, YouTube clips, etc.  The point is just to post.

And to be honest, last year I didn’t even finish.  I stopped playing along with only 8 days left.  The funny thing, I still managed to post all but three days.  And some days, I posted upwards of three times (granted, I was in Ireland and photos were involved, but still).  Again, it’s just about the game.

Another cool side effect of participating in NaBloPoMo (even if you don’t finish), you become part of a community.  People that are open to blogging and the experiencing of sharing their lives and their knowledge.  There’s no judgment. Heck, in the forty-something group, we’re chatting about how we don’t feel like we’re forty-somethings and want something else to call ourselves (I opted for the appropriate “just beyond 30-something”).

So if you’re new to blogging, or have been looking to get better or more comfortable at blogging, why not give it a try. If you’ve ever thought about posting some of your recipes, your poems or your photos, do it now.  If you’ve ever thought that you wanted to get started and try your hand at sharing your expertise and giving blogging a shot…no time like the present.

Head on over to the NaBloPoMo site and get signed up.  Then spread the word.

While you’re at it, be sure to comment, comment, comment.  Remember, it’s all about community and networking.

PS – I won’t be doing my daily blogging on this site, but if you’re really interested in following along, you can do so at my personal blog here.

You may or may not know who Afilias or .INFO is…so let me tell you a little about it.

The Internet was originally created with .com, .net, .org and some other domains. But in 2001 ICANN, the group that oversees the Internet’s naming system added more extensions called “new top-level domains.” .INFO was the first of these new TLDs to launch for the public to register. Afilias is the registry for .INFO – the man behind the screen as it were – that makes all .INFO domains work across the Internet. They also provide technology and DNS services to 14 other TLDs, together over 15 million domains worldwide.

It is fitting that this October Afilias would open an awards program, as it marks the 8^th anniversary of open registration in the first new TLD launched since .COM. Since 2001, .INFO has grown to over 5 million domains with millions of live Web sites. Afilias highlights some of them in their growing directory at http://www.info.info/directory .

It is interesting to browse through those sites and those submitted for the awards. Resoundingly, people claim that they chose .INFO because their site shares information and it “just made sense” to put their information on a .INFO domain. Beyond it being intuitive, it is also clear that .INFO has global appeal with more of the submissions to the awards coming from outside of the United States than in. According to Afilias 53% of .INFO domains are registered in North America, 33% from Europe, and about 8% from Asia, Australia and the Pacific.

I along with 5 other fellow judges from around the globe are now working on reviewing the sites submitted to the 2009 .INFO Awards program.  Afilias’ awards will reward a handful of .INFO site owners that took the effort to submit for this year’s Awards program with cash prizes including up to $7500 for first place.

The judges will score these sites against five criteria: Presentation of Content, Functionality, Design, Usability, and Originality. From our total scores as judges, Afilias will produce a list of top 10 sites. Then YOU get to vote! Afilias will post these top 10 sites for public vote beginning at 9:00 am ET on November 2. You can vote at www.info-award.info until November 6^th!

The winners will be determined by our judges scores plus the tally of public votes and will be announced on November 9^th.

Did you know that thanks to many of the latest social networks, blogging and youtube, that you can now find some great DIY resources?

I love PR in Your Pajamas.  Elena Verlee has plenty of resources for the DIY solopreneur.  She offers coaching, teleseminars, ebooks and more.  I especially appreciate her article on building your own media list.

Another great resource that I discovered recently (through PitchRate – see below) is Drew Gerber at Publicity Results. They have quite a few videos that really go a long way in explaining how to secure your own PR and get some media action.  Truly quality stuff.

This past month I also found out about Damon Carson at Publicity Associates (through HARO – see below).  He’s put together a great package that addresses how to write press releases and how to self-pitch to media.  Check it out.

There’s also two great pitch sites that I follow along closely (and often post pitches for my own articles and products for gift guides): Help A Reporter Out (HARO) and Pitchrate.com.  Both are quality sources for both pitching leads in search of experts and for responding to pitches as the expert. To say nothing of being great leads for additional training and DIY PR tools (as outlined above).

And lastly, while it may not be free, it’d definiately awesome information and well worth the small fee…Naomi Dunford’s Marketing 101^*.  And you know how much I love Naomi and all things IttyBiz and her free marketing course (though I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I’ll buy damn near anything that woman sells!  She’s that good).

Now get out there and get some attention already!!  It’s not as tough (or as expensive) as you might think.

*Disclosure Policy

I’d been holding off on creating packages for so long because I always felt that both blogging and social networking are not one-size-fits all strategies.  Every business is not the same and more importantly every business does not have the sames needs. Or the same goals in mind.

Therefore, I needed to have an highly individualized approach to working with my clients and to helping them to meet their business goals and needs.

Each package starts off with an in depth consultation so that they can be personalized to meet your individual needs and those of your business.

Please, check out the services and packages that I can provide for you and your business.  And feel free to tell your friends.

Next up…finally getting those testimonials up!

We’ve always heard that a confused mind takes no action.  Which of course means if you can’t set things up to be easily understood by your potential clients, being sure to address any and all questions they may have, then more than likely, they’re not buying.

Believe it or not, I’ve hid behind this rule for the past year or so.

So much so, that for the most of the year, I didn’t have any packages listed on my site.  Which of course meant that I had far fewer clients that I would have preferred (and I see how often potential clients check out my services page).

Let’s face it, we’re all afraid of making the wrong choice, making a bad choice, or getting made fun of or ridiculed for the choice we made.  So rather than make a choice, any choice, we walk away.

Whatever you sell, there are two big reasons people aren’t buying it:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

If you can get over those two, then you get the chance to prove that they need it and it’s a good value. But as long as people are afraid of what you sell, you’re stuck.

People are afraid of tax accountants, iPods, chiropractors, non-profits, insurance brokers and fancy hotels. They’re afraid of anything with too many choices, too many opportunities to look foolish or to waste time or money.

So what are you doing to help your clients and customers to make a choice instead of giving in to their fear?

I know I’ll be spending the next week or so redesigning my packages.

But I have been invited to be a judge for the 2009 .INFO Awards.

The .INFO Awards program was first launched two years ago and focused primarily on Germany. With the 2009 program, they’ve  expanded the awards and are allowing .INFO sites from all over the world to submit for consideration.

If you’d like to submit your .INFO site, you have until Friday October 23, 2009.  Judging will be open to the public starting at 9am November 2, 2009 and will close on Friday, November 6^th.  The top 3 winners will be announced on Monday, November 9^th.

Prizes:

First place: US$7500
Second place: US $5000
Third place: US$3000

The .INFO sites will be scored on 5 criteria: presentation of content, functionality of the website, design, usability and originality.  The full list of rules is available here.

This will be a first for me, but something I’m very excited about.  With all the time I spend on the Internet, I’ve got to be a good judge of websites.

You can follow along on Facebook or you can follow @Afilias on Twitter.